My Chinese flatmate left me their Apple iMac but it's not working

[RichW9]

Hi all,

I was wondering if someone here could help. I've recently moved back into my shared flat (was on lockdown at my parents erghh) and I arrived back and my Chinese flatmate has gone back to China (he left like 6 months ago lol) and he left me a note saying I could have his Apple iMac. It's an A1418 and it has the keyboard and mouse. It was all in a box with the note and I thought WOW this is awesome, but I went to turn it on and I get a no entry sign. I looked online and it said press command and R, so I did that but still nothing.

Could it be that it has been sat with no power for so long the keyboard doesn't work? Maybe he had some Chinese thing installed? I know nothing about Imac's or Apple I only have my PC which I use normally.

Could I buy a boot up USB that would format the drive?

I'll leave the thing plugged in tonight and then try the command R thing again in the morning when they keyboard has charged, if it works that way(?). But any other ideas would be welcome, as it was really nice of the guy to leave it for me.

Thanks for any advice.

 

[RichW9]

You forgot to say that it absolutely isn't in any way at all even a little bit stolen.

?? I'm an academic at a well known University here in the UK, my friend went back to China and left this here. Why would you think this?

 

[RichW9]

Sounds like he erased the drive before leaving.
Command R went work as afaik this model doesn’t support recovery but I think works with internet recovery.

try command Option R instead

I have no way to contact him, it's the usual scenario when staff / students return to China, you end up never seeing them again.

I tried replacing the batteries and I got a green light on the keyboard, but when I press command R it still goes to no entry sign on the monitor.

Have you checked to see if there's a Hard Drive in it? He may have taken it with him!

It shows the apple updating / loading thing on start up, so I'm assuming that there is one in there(?).

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT210901

You need to download Big Sur on to a USB stick and then hold down alt to boot from it.

Plenty of guides out there to make a bootable USB stick.

He wouldn’t have taken the hard disk out of it because it’s too hard!

Great, thanks for that I'll look into it, appreciated.

 

[RichW9]

It’s new enough to have internet recovery actually..

during boot, hold down “Command + Option + R” key button.

Should have the option for internet recovery. You should be able to wipe the disk and reinstall OSX without making a USB stick!

Wow, you are right it allows that option! Although I don't have broadband to reinstall and it wont pick up my iphone which I use for tethered internet.

Anyway, it seems that command R now works, you have to press it straight away on boot up. I have 4 options:

Restore from time machine backup
Reinstall macOS
Get help online
Disk Utility

Does anyone know which one would be best to solve the "no entry" sign on start up? As mentioned there is nothing of mine on the computer so should I just use Disk Utility to wipe everything? I don't even understand why the no entry sign is coming up. I thought Mac's were supposed to be more user friendly than PC, not so far for me.

 

[RichW9]

I would run Disk Utility to delete any existing partitions and then run the Reinstall macOS option.

The no entry sign is saying it can't boot from the hard drive. That could be because there's nothing on there or because the drive has failed.

Thanks for the help, I cant see any partitions, I only have these:

Why is there a disk image? Is that normal for macs? I hit "restore" but it didnt do anything, maybe try Erase? Thanks again.

 

[RichW9]

The disk image will be the recovery image you are booted to (internet recovery). Erase the internal drive and it should create the partition for you also. Then exit out of that screen and choose to reinstall.

Ok thanks. But when I go to reinstall I get this:

Then when I click continue nothing happens. Probably because I have no broadband here. Does this mean I'll have to do it from USB?

 

[RichW9]

edit I missed the light gray wifi icon in the top right corner, I've managed to connect it to my iphone hotspot. Let's see how it goes. Will update thanks.

 

[RichW9]

Just to note, the download is quite beefy so just bear in mind if you are on a limited data plan or something with your phone!

Yeah it's a complete nightmare, it's just stuck at 5 minutes remaining, but no progress. Read about a similar error here:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7774844

I'll have to try access someone else's wifi because there's no way I can do this over 4G! I'm on unlimited data and been using my phone for internet all through lockdown 17 quid a month for phone and internet. Been streaming (<720p) with no problems, my current bill shows I've used 111771.47 MB of Unlimited Data for this month lol.

Anyway thanks again for the help, will try to find broadband access, and if no joy will create a boot USB.

 

[RichW9]

Remaining time is far from accurate on the MacOS installer and five minutes can be ten/fifteen (or more). Instead, you're better off using the 'Install Log' and determining the progress from there.

Click Window (top menu bar) > Log (shortcut = CMD + L), then change the drop-down (from 'Show Errors Only') to 'Show All Logs' which will display exactly what the installer is doing - if it shows 'chunk' then it's downloading a chunk/portion of the MacOS installer image.

Hmm it does seem to be moving, I can't see "chunk" anywhere though only these "sending status" things:

Has gone down to 4 mins now though, but the download bar has gone gray, I'm sure it was blue before

IIRC, the Sierra install image is around 5GB which should be doable via 4G. But if it is as a late as a '12/'14 iMac then it can take a fair while to reinstall Sierra, so i would suggest just leaving it overnight.

Ok, great 5 GB should be doable, just will take around 7 hours on 4G IME.

 

[RichW9]

How slow is your 4g? My home WiFi is 4g and it runs no bother. A 5gb file downloads in around 40mins (an hour tops) - and I live in the back of beyond, hence the need for 4g.

That's faster than mine! But then I do use it a lot, Three may be limiting my speed, but as long as I can stream movies / youtube that's all I use it for really. Didn't want to get into a long term broadband contract since my job at the University is only temporary.

@RichW9 - 'storedownloadd' is the the App Store daemon (good). 'sending status', not entirely sure to be honest as I can't say I've seen that log message before, although typically you'll see errors if anything is amiss and i'd take a hunch that it's downloading albeit extremely slowly - slow connection or your network is throttling Apple's update servers.

Leave it an hour and see what it says.
Otherwise, try and use an alternative connection or if you know anyone with a Mac (and internet access and a 8GB+ USB drive), then you can create a bootable USB drive of the Sierra installer (which arguably is the easy option).

I think you're right it seems to be moving slowly forward. Will leave it overnight then check it out in the morning, hopefully will work if not will try USB boot drive thanks. Never had an iMac before, not really something I'm interested in as my PC does everything I need here, but will try it out anyway.

Thanks again for the help.

 

[RichW9]

All working! Looks great and very clean! For those who have similar trouble, make sure you keept command R pressed when you turn on the device, format main drive, reinstall after, then press command L to see progress.

A massive thanks all!

 

[RichW9]

Glad you got it sorted, now don't just run off but stick around and have a look at the rest of the forum

Got it sorted but I can't use this thing, I can't configure anything, the programs are irritating and much prefer my PC!! And the "magic" mouse is just annoying, it's far from magic haha I'm sensing it's on it's way to eBay lol

Sure, will do, looking to upgrade my PC soon and I do some retro gaming so will take a look, thanks for the warm welcome!

 

[RichW9]

It's like anything new, it's just unfamiliarity and learning a different system.

I can't argue with you on the Magic Mouse, it's awful. Apple have never been able to design a decent mouse which is why I use the Magic Trackpad, that really is magical.

I gave it a chance but it seems that Apple is just not me tbh. On my PC I have been using the same exact programs for the last 10 years, and they work, I don't need any new stuff. Damn, I'm getting old lol

 

[RichW9]

Hour and a half, that's not giving it a chance

Perhaps not hah, but I don't go in for all this newfangled technology, this Apple system just seems to be fancy for the sake of being fancy. Might try again in the morning.

I'd been using computers since my early teens, long before Windows existed and I decided back in the middle of 2008 that I wanted to try using OS X. I made it my main OS, deliberately didn't touch Windows to force me to learn about it and within a couple of weeks I was absolutely hooked, I far preferred it to Windows and haven't looked back.

Windows 10 is also actually a complete nightmare, Windows 7 was the last good Windows OS system. But I just put up with 10's constant forced updates / spyware now. My computer does what I want it to do... for now